Happy Christmas 2017

And that’s it, I’m closing up for Christmas, pulling the curtains and popping on the kettle.

Thank you for your support during 2017. It really has meant a lot.

I hope that you will have time to stop and recharge this Christmas. Take a breath. Lose yourself in some art. Watch your favourite film. Watch a new film. Pick up a comic. Read a book. Listen to music. But try to do it without being distract by twitter, or instagram or whatever else is shouting at you from your mobile screen.

Take time to be absorbed.

Celebrate Christmas your own way. Don’t feel pressured to experience the Yuletide you’ve been told you should enjoy. There’s no right way. Don’t put yourself under extra pressure to make it perfect. It’s great to make memories, but try to make them fun, make them loving, and make them count for you.

Use the time to look back and also look forward. Don’t use other people’s apparent happiness as a barometer for your own. Celebrate your friends’ successes over the last year, but don’t use them to belittle what you’ve achieved.

Set goals for 2018. Not resolutions. They’re brittle and easy to break. Goals move you forward. Make them specific and make them realistic. But, most of all, make them exciting. Make sure they’re what you really want to do, not what you think you should do, or what other people are doing. They belong to you, and no one else.

Make time for others this December 25th, but also take time for yourself.